In his humanity Jesus treasured close relationships with special friends. These encouraged and refreshed him in all the pressures he had to endure in his demanding ministry. The home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary was one place where he could enjoy a respite from his toils and the troublers that always dogged him. It may have been that Bethany was so dear to him for the relief and affection he found there (Mark 16:3-9) that he chose the vicinity as the point of fond farewell and ascension from his life on earth in the flesh. At Bethany an act of affectionate anointing prepared him for his burial (John 12:1-7) and at Bethany Jesus demonstrated the power of resurrection. It was an apt location from which to receive his transfer from lowliness in this world to sovereignty over his kingdom. Connections with people and places were cherished by Jesus.

Similarly, Jesus had chosen a favoured place of rendezvous for intimate occasions of instruction and conversation with his disciples (John 18:2). With some frequency the Lord and his apostles gathered in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus must have imparted much to them which, although mysterious at the times on which he spoke to them, became clear and immensely powerful in their own ministries beyond his resurrection. But these seasons of conversation and prayer together must have united the disciples as brothers and bonded them to Jesus in such a way as supported him. Among them he could confide as deeply and as freely as possible. No doubt the times were precious and joyful for his followers and yet always bitter-sweet for the Saviour. The same awareness of his eventual suffering pervaded the air of the garden just as the perfume at his anointing at Bethany portended his passion. Jesus could not spend a moment of consciousness without the prospect of the cross looming before him. His friendships were a consolation even though his friends, despite warnings, were oblivious to his destiny. Human companionship would have been soothing, allied to the thought that his death was procuring their salvation.

Gethsemane was a place of solace for Jesus just as Bethany happened to be. The men who knew him best and cared for him most surrounded him there in the shade of the olive trees. His chosen ones were a source of joy as well as frustration. Their spiritual dimness was a disappointment but they had been selected with deliberation and love. Their company would have been appreciated. Jesus regarded them as friends in the fullest sense – confidants with whom he shared the secrets of his mission and the coming kingdom (John 15: 14-16). He knew that the day would come when the conversations in Gethsemane would bear fruit. Gethsemane would be cherished in each loyal heart..

When the full and overwhelming agony of his death and separation from his Father began to descend upon him with all the crushing force of an olive press bruising and pulverizing his heart Jesus resorted to the groves of Gethsemane to give vent to his anguish in prayer. It must have been a private venue from time to time for his appointments with the Father where he wrestled and wailed in his grapplings of soul. The disciples could never have imagined the strivings of their Master or the issues over which he pondered, but as the climax approached he sought their companionship in his darkest hour. They were to sit in the familiar place and wait until prayer had resolved his unutterable grief. Did they grasp anything of the intensity of his sorrow and the significance of the moment? Their baffled minds must have been stilled and bent in meditation and prayer as he took leave of them, summoning Peter, James, and John to go further into the gloom with him.

Were these three men marshalled to be near him for the comfort of their presence? Were they to watch in earnest concern as his soul within him sunk almost to the point of death? Or were they there to alert him to the arrival of the crew that would enforce his arrest and seal the reality of the agony of his abandonment by God? The moment was grim and unutterably torturous.

Twice in the midst of his appeals to heaven Jesus returned to his disciples to find them sleeping. Three times Jesus fell before the throne of the Father seeking the endurance of his willing obedience through the horrors of his fearful ordeal. With his heart astir with intolerable distress he finds his bosom friends “sleeping for theireyes were heavy”. It cannot be that these disciples were indifferent to Jesus’ state of mind and consequent behaviour. Somehow the situation drained them of energy through a sense of anxiety at the Lord’s words to them at the Last Supper and his mien on the way and into the garden. “He came to the disciples and foundthem sleeping from sorrow” (Luke 22:45). The darkness of Gethsemane was more than the absence of daylight. There was something unusually oppressive on the night of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest. Satan’s servant, Judas the traitor, was negotiating the downfall of Jesus and disclosing his whereabouts to the police. The atmosphere was ominous. The friendliness of the garden had dissipated. One of the brethren who knew where Jesus and the disciples used to sequester themselves in close communion was now violating the setting of holy fellowship as a tool of evil. The urge, “Go to dark Gethsemane”, for Jesus was an impulse in his toil of salvation for the lost. For the disciples it was a response to their Lord resolute in bearing the pain of their deserts on their behalf. For Judas it was in fulfilment of his wicked designs.

So gruelling was the test inflicted upon the Saviour that he counselled his men, “Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:46). In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus was reversing the fatal failure of mankind in the Garden of Eden where temptation had succeeded in ruining our race through the weakness of our nature. No one but Jesus can withstand and repel the wiles and sinister purposes of the devil. Jesus defeated Satan’s craftiness in the wilderness, now in Gethsemane he made amends for Adam’s disobedience and revealed his determination to drink the cup of wrath and expulsion from the favour of God that mankind had merited. He bore the severity of the test that man could not bear and he pledged himself to the protection of the ones he represented on the cross: “I pray for them. I am notpraying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. . . .Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name” (John 17:9, 11). The great test that would destroy us (the judgment) has been met and endured by the One who substituted himself for believers. The disciples did not have the strength to watch and pray with Jesus but now they must watch and pray for the ordeals and trials that they will experience because they are his in a world that is hostile and manipulated by the evil one. Jesus confirmed the eternal agreement of the Father and the Son to spare us through the passion and costly sacrifice of his One and Only who sealed his suffering and our salvation with the great commitment, “yet not My will, but Thine be done”, the greatest ever words spoken in the garden (Luke 2242). The Saviour entered dark Gethsemane, “Knowing all the things that were coming upon him” (John 18:4).

“Darkness” is the rather ominous term used in Scripture for the environment we inhabit. It is a moral evaluation of the mental and spiritual milieu that gives rise to the human mindset and the inclinations of our nature. The origin of the darkness that engulfs, surrounds, and fills the entire soul of man is in the nature and machinations of the devil. Satan’s spirit is the seat of the malign black force that opposes God and wreaks havoc in his creation. The darkness began as a spot of envy that swelled to pride and burst forth as a miasma of negativity and chaos that would swallow up the light and annihilate life even at the point of its divine source. The Initiator of all that is, and everything that bears his image, had to be extinguished. The jealous hatred of the dark one had to erase all signs of the Holy One he insanely chose to rival. Destruction is his only aim and course of action. A creation declared good had to be degraded. Man made in the likeness of God had to be savagely tortured and exterminated through misery and murder. Christ the Son and Self-expression of the Father has to be assailed and overcome. The lie at the heart of rebel existence has to triumph. Yet the satanic delusion of domination over God and independence of him seals the doom of the arch perpetrator of evil. His revolt is suicidal. There could be no survival of the impossible event of the death of God. But such is the ambition of the dark one. In his craft he seduced even angels to his cause, and in cunning cruelty he has subdued man to complicity in his hostile campaign. For a duration Satan commands a kingdom and bears the title “god of this world”. He has a permit to operate in defiance of God and defilement of his works until the Lord strikes him down in demonstration of his holiness and power and capacity to turn evil to good. Satan in his folly and all his exertions is promoting the glory of God in the final revelation of his mercy and justice within his universe. God in all his perfection will be fully vindicated in the victory over his hateful foe.

The darkness cannot prevail, though for the present it pervades certain limits within the cosmos, permeates our world, and presides within the nature of man. It has dominion over us. It blinds our perception. It is suffuses every affection. It is the cause of a radical enmity towards God and an alienation from him. We have been seduced by the devil’s lie which has been inserted at the core of our nature, and are in ardent pursuit of his programme, willing slaves to his designs, his co-operative and consenting captives, even though he marches us in chains to the horrible fate of the second death – the abyss that awaits him and the furnace that awaits us. The darkness is the tragic condition and nemesis of our race yet it scarcely registers in our awareness, because along with his seduction Satan administers the sedatives of his carnal satisfactions and we amble towards disaster in a dizzy stupor and state of torpor. Satan casts his spells and we succumb to his illusions, a life of vanity filled with vain hopes and vain dreams, only to awaken from a nightmare that has become an alarming reality – the eternal estrangement from God.

The reference to “the darkness” is a grim reminder of our plight. It points to the necessity and power of Christ’s redemption and impels us to grasp it. It explains the enmity of the world and why we have no truce with it, and cannot agree with the fundamental ways of man that are in conflict with the will of God. Our common humanity, which is at one in its need for healing, cannot concur with or bridge our differences with the fallen morality of this world and its loquacious pundits. We live on a different plain and are guided by another wisdom to which sinful man cannot submit. He does not see the light, but hates it, and avoids it. The grounds for amicable and successful debate are absent. Where the light and love of the Spirit do not commend the precepts of the Word to the conscience there is no disposition for obedience. We are at odds with the world and the witness we must give cannot compel assent unless the Lord persuades the unwilling. The darkness is overwhelming. It is not passive but resistant. If it were to recede men would pull it back and wrap themselves in its multiple folds. Darkness is preferred until light breaks through and drives it away with superior force. Our arguments are futile until affections are changed by omnipotent grace. The world lies in darkness and men have no desire to move from its shadows or any longing to see it dispelled. The darkness hinders and handicaps our faculties because it distorts our vision and dictates our appetites. The tendency and tastes of the godly differ sharply from the direction and desires of the unregenerate. Born supernaturally from above the elect look upwards to him. Even if the faculties of reflection and expression of the children of God are feeble and inferior they have a sense of the distinction between the policies of contradictory kingdoms – the realms of light and darkness. The conflict between those endued with the mind of God and those who are darkened in their understanding is not a battle of wits between them that has to be won by clever debate. The grounds for disagreement lie in attitude. Believers apprehend that they are not their own and in meekness align themselves with the will of their Lord who has revealed himself to them. The disobedient evince a stubborn resolve, “not to have this man rule over us”. They despise the kingship of Christ and have contempt for the divine plan of salvation realized in him.

The darkness is barely tolerable because God makes existence sustainable thorough the maintenance, to some degree, of natural reason and the remnants of humane instincts with which man was endowed at his creation. Common grace, the influences of the Holy Spirit that do not result in salvation, ensures that man does not collapse into total self destruction through the forces of his utter corruption and the pressures of the spiritual tyrant that manipulates him. Nonetheless, our world is the tempestuous arena of savage warfare where the enemies of God seek to deface his image, renounce his proprietorial rights over everything he has made, and foil all his purposes. The perpetual violence of man in all its forms, physical and psychological, is a vicious thrust at the one created to be an icon of God. The perversion of sex, especially gender confusion, is an attack on the union of man and woman together as a “two part” representation of God with the power to perpetuate human life to the glory of God who has called us into a unique and honourable partnership with himself. The rape and exploitation of the earth for selfish gain rather than our moderate needs is a robbery of the treasury of God meant for us all to share and enjoy. The pride, the greed, the envy, the aggression of our race, replicate the nature of our wicked rebel commander. The infection of his evilness has putrefied the essence of our being and produced all our disorders.

The Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, abandoned the Christian faith of his Reformed forebears because he believed they failed to recognize the reality of evil. Our current superficiality and sentimentalism confirm that insight. Until we confront the darkness within and around us we shall never truly understand or trust the Lord Jesus. We shall not respect his status or his Saviourhood, nor worthily comprehend why and how he came to destroy the works of the devil (I Jn 3:8).

The two essential marks of a true church are the preaching of the Word and the pure administration of the sacraments. Both are the gifts of the Saviour to his people. In the life of the people of God these happen to be the supreme blessings. They are to be at the apex of Christian consideration. Word and sacrament are to be supplied faithfully, sought eagerly, and received with reverence, duly honoured because they are the vehicles of saving and sanctifying grace dispensed by the Holy Spirit. They take precedence over every other priority or action. More than anything else they determine our allegiance to any place and mode of worship. Other factors are of relatively secondary importance, matters of personal preference or prejudice that need to be weighed carefully against that which is now uncommonly provided in a church broadly fixated on entertainment and gratification or indulgence of the senses, and effete through neglect of sound, strong doctrine. No other institution on earth is appointed solely to the task of proclaiming the Gospel in the interests of the salvation of mankind. Word and sacrament are the distinctive features of the Church. Without them the Church ceases to be. It is a redundant and forlorn operation, incompetent in other areas of expertise, and a deadly danger to souls. It is called to be the instrument of divine truth, compassion, and righteousness among men as expressed in Jesus Christ. Adrift from him it is a blight upon humanity and a vicious deceiver of human minds, effectively the blind leading the blind into an eternal ditch.

Many would add another feature to an accurate description of a true church. In view of the holy character and intent of word and sacrament to rescue sinners and build up the saints it is indispensable but it is to be exercised with enormous skill and sensitivity imparted by the knowledge of the Word and the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Because we are fallen, discipline in the church, the third mark of identification of the people of God, for all of its correct motivation, can be exercised harshly and harmfully, and tempered by impatience, ill feeling, and self righteousness. Discipline in the church of God can be a cover legalism and even self loathing. Vengeance is wrought upon those who reflect our own discomforting tendencies as a way of diverting punishment to another and clearing the conscience. It is a subtle perversion of our innate need for a substitute to bear our guilt and relieve it.

Discipline must be impartial and dispassionate, restorative before retributive, and spiritual cleansing, humility, and holiness are essential on the part of those called to carry out this awesome pastoral duty. Sinners have no right to judge sinners or adjudicate their cases unless God gives evidence of the calling and the abundance of his influences in fulfilling it. Only those alert to their own helpless depravity and their utter, “desperate” reliance upon grace and forgiveness at all times can meld seriousness and sympathy together for the oversight of believers besieged by sin and drawn by their native evil and natural weakness into paths that dishonour the name of God, imperil their souls, and injure others. We are all mired in sin, susceptible to falling, if left to our selves, in an instant. Any “human tribunal” must function in the fear of self, the fear of God, and the fear of faulty judgment and procedure. In every situation there is the lurking danger of the legalistic approach, the lenient attitude, and the neglect of a comprehensive and threefold love that is to prevail.

Discipline is pursued, first of all, through love for God. We are anxious for the glory of his Name and the reputation of his Person. This aspect of discipline begins with ourselves in the maintenance of our daily walk before him and with him. Here, Word and sacrament, prayer, private and public devotion, and fellowship with believers claim our attention and participation. Lapses in the care of the soul lead to our being ill attuned to God and the members of his family. We lose tact in our relationships and trouble soon ensues. Out of sorts we are out of line, governed by our grouchiness, murmuring against the Lord and complaining of our friends in faith.

When this area of discipline breaks down we are vulnerable to wandering into temptation and self will. Our ties to God and the support of his people, which we eventually become too proud to accept, expose us to the beckoning of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The tyranny of this vile trinity can rapidly take charge of our lives in various ways both subtle and overt, even if we labour to conceal or excuse them, and carelessness fosters commission of heart sins and actual misdemeanours displeasing to God and hazardous to ourselves. When this drift occurs and becomes obvious the love and concern of the people of God moves into action for the reclamation and restoration of the offender. If there is consternation over the sin and concern for the cause of God, there is also compassion for the sinner. Who among us is immune from the entrapment of the soul by our mortal foes inward and without? It could be so easily ourselves who fall prey to any wrongdoing and we tremble at its occurrence in the life of any individual. Haste to condemn is a symptom of the ignorance of the real power and prevalence of sin in every heart and we have to be protected from our own pride and eagerness to pounce upon another. The sin angers us but it haunts our natures as well. Without measureless mercy where would we be? To minimize the abuse of discipline it would seem wise to follow the counsel of D.B Knox in his treatment of 1 Corinthians 5. Whatever grave steps may have to be taken ultimately with an errant brother or sister before fellowship is withdrawn, the person must be committed to the Lord Jesus and his power in earnest prayer, congregational if necessary, and the personal expulsive action of the Holy Spirit sincerely evoked to effect removal so that discipline cannot be ascribed to the haughty or hurtful intentions of man. We must do nothing to goad to further rebellion or engender a grudge.

Discipline is an act of love towards the assembly of believers. The infection and offence of sin must be prevented so that tender souls will be healed and tempted souls guarded from its allure. It is fear of sin that dominates in discipline, not the legalism that expresses superiority over others and a disgust that is to be equally directed at ourselves. There is not to be a leniency that underestimates the seriousness of sin in ourselves and others. A fierce love of God and his holiness fights against this tendency. Salvation is the rescue from the love of sin. Who can grants us a balance of approach that reflects the perfection of God in his righteous hatred of sin and his gracious redemption of the sinner? In essence it is beyond the capacity of man for we are always the guilty gazing upon the guilty? Who can save us from our ugly legalism, our self-pandering leniency, and uphold the honour of God and promote the healing the one who falls? The compassion of the Lord allied to his wisdom must coalesce in the expression of love that renders its due to him primarily, the sinner in peril, and the folk who pray for a happy deliverance.